Radhika Vaid
Staff Writer

SMC’s Public Services and Research Manager Dustin Smith has published his first book, supporting a more historically accurate portrayal of Jesus.

Smith’s book, “Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John,” looks at the scholarly portrayal of Jesus and aims to help readers understand Jesus within his historical and cultural context.

“First, I observed that the scholarly literature on the Gospel of John kept talking about this thing called ‘Wisdom Christology’ – the Christological portrayal of the person of Jesus Christ that portrays him with the traits, roles, and characteristics formerly belonging to the personified wisdom of Israel’s God,” Smith said.

However, when he talked to non-scholars who study the Bible, they had no concept of this portrayal. In effect, academic experts all seemed to know something that was not being communicated to the average adult reader of the Bible. Smith wanted to make this information available, understandable, and accessible outside academia.

“I’m convinced that this scholarly portrayal of Jesus is a more historically responsible reading of the Gospel of John, which was written toward the end of the first century CE,” Smith said. “The popular interpretation of the Gospel of John, common in churches and on the internet, is to begin with the highly developed understanding of God and Christ from the fourth- and fifth-century church councils and to read those views back into the Gospel of John.”

Modern historians rightly note that this sort of reading is historically inaccurate. First-century documents must be read in their first-century context; otherwise, the meaning gets distorted. Smith’s volume sets the Gospel of John in its first-century Jewish setting and makes that reconstruction accessible to average readers of the Bible who do not have scholarly training.

Despite the rewarding nature of the project, Smith faced challenges, including addressing the amount of scholarly work on the topic. The book’s bibliography includes more than 350 entries and balancing thorough research with accessibility was a significant task.

“There is just so much scholarly material on the topic of Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John, even though the average reader of the Bible has never heard of it,” he said.

“I hope that readers will have a better appreciation for the need to understand the person of Jesus as a Jew who must be set in his first-century Jewish context, including Jewish literature in which the God of Israel uses his personified wisdom to interact with creation. Jesus embodies this wisdom and functions as the wise human agent of God’s life-giving purposes throughout the narrative of the Gospel of John,” Smith said.

The book has been well-received, quickly achieving the number one spot in its category on Amazon within 24 hours of its release. Smith spent 10 years researching and writing the book and says he’s certainly open to another book project if the right subject comes along.

“If you do it well, writing books is difficult. I only write when I have a subject I am passionate about, and this book certainly fits that description,” he said. “I was surprised to learn that the book was far more highly anticipated than I realized. If I find another subject that fuels my passion to help others understand it better, I will certainly write another book.”